Off to Stockholm to Speak at the Royal Institute of Technology -- KTH

It is a wonderful time to be living in Sweden (although, regretfully, Sweden lost its recent Euro 2012 soccer match, and we were hoping for some major celebrations).

It is close to midsommer, when the Swedes recognize the beginning of summer and have many get-togethers with family and friends, often in their summer homes, which tend to be small red cottages with, if possible, views of the sea.

When the sun is out, the Swedes are out and I love the emphasis on being outdoors in this country. Even in Gothenburg, where I have been for several weeks, the cafes have blankets on the chairs to warm us up because it is great to be sitting outside to dine.

Today, I will be taking the train from Gothenburg to Stockholm. My family and I lived in Stockholm, and I could not resist an invitation to speak at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), which had hosted me when my daughter was only 2 with visits back when she was 4 and 7. It will be wonderful to see former colleagues in transport, regional science, and optimization there. I also plan on going back to the Wenner Gren Center off of Haga Park, where we lived in Stockholm and made friends from around the globe  and which I have written about.

I will be speaking at KTH tomorrow on perishable product supply chains in health care and will be describing some of our recent research on oligopolistic competition in pharmaceuticals, blood supply chains, as well as medical nuclear supply chains, which combines operations research and network economics.

Sweden has always felt like my second home -- its natural beauty, architecture, emphasis on sustainability, elegant design, and its fascinating history and architecture plus its people and food captivate me.

Perishable Product Supply Chains in Health Care

I will be speaking at McGill University in the Management Science research seminar this Friday.

I am very much looking forward to being back at McGill, having been there only this past August at the terrific INTRIM Conference, which focused in integrated risk management in operations and global supply chains.

The title and abstract of my presentation are below.

Title: Perishable Product Supply Chains in Health Care: Models, Analysis, and Computations

Abstract: In this presentation, I will describe our recent research on perishable product supply chains ranging from pharmaceutical supply chains with branded products to medical nuclear supply chains and blood supply chains. I will discuss the generalized network frameworks under system-optimization as well as in the case of oligopolistic competition. Waste management and sustainability issues will also be highlighted.

The OM/MS group at McGill is fabulous and I will be hosted by Professor Vedat Verter and Mehmet Gumus.

Higher Quality at Lower Prices -- An Agreement for Generic Medicines that Must be Passed

Many of the greatest successes of the field of Operations Research have resulted in policy implementations and the alteration of the status quo, sometimes even through regulations supported by quantifiably convincing mathematical models and data.

In terms of healthcare, the leading work of our colleague, Professor Ed Kaplan at the Yale School of Management, in needle exchange programs to reduce AIDS, immediately comes to mind.

When it comes to healthcare, some of the major issues that we are faced with in our country today are twofold: high costs and (low) quality, with an associated component being questionable availability whether of healthcare providers or even medicines or service, in general.

Healthcare is so important that the only way in which we may be able to guarantee change is through legislation. During times such as these, when our medical nuclear supply chains have exhibited shortages of critical diagnostic radioisotopes, and when cancer drugs cannot be obtained by patients who need them for their survival, we are clearly in a medical crisis.

We wrote the OpEd piece: Viewpoint: Passage of American Medical Isotope Production Act of 2011 will help ensure U.S. nuclear medicine supply chain, and today's editorial in The New York Times: A Deal to Get Cheaper and Safer Drugs argues that lawmakers must quickly approve legislation that would ensure fees from generic drug manufacturers that would enable regular inspections of out of country manufacturing plants to ensure safety, and let's not forget about availability, as I have written about passionately on this blog.

The understanding of our complex global healthcare supply chains, and associated policy making, must be based on rigorous mathematical modeling and analysis that capture the network economics aspects as well as multicriteria decision-making to ensure quality but at reasonable cost. Operations researchers, with their multidisciplinary training, as well as mindsets, and collaborative networks, are leading the way.

It is imperative, however, that we, as researchers, educators and members of professional societies, get the news out about research that can make a difference.

Some of our relevant research on multitiered, multicriteria supply chain networks:

Supply Chain Outsourcing Under Exchange Rate Risk and Competition
Zugang Liu and Anna Nagurney, Omega 39: (2011) pp 539-549.

Global Supply Chain Network Dynamics with Multicriteria Decision-Making Under Risk and Uncertainty
Anna Nagurney and Dmytro Matsypura, Transportation Research E 41: (2005) pp 585-612.

Multitiered Supply Chain Networks: Multicriteria Decision–Making under Uncertainty
June Dong, Ding Zhang, Hong Yan, and Anna Nagurney, Annals of Operations Research 135: (2005) pp 155-178.

Some of our research on healthcare supply chains, specifically:

Medical Nuclear Supply Chain Design: A Tractable Network Model and Computational Approach
Anna Nagurney and Ladimer S. Nagurney (2011)

Multiproduct Humanitarian Healthcare Supply Chains: A Network Modeling and Computational Framework
Anna Nagurney, Min Yu, and Qiang Qiang (2011)

Supply Chain Network Operations Management of a Blood Banking System with Cost and Risk Minimization
Anna Nagurney, Amir H. Masoumi, and Min Yu, Computational Management Science: (2011), in press

Supply Chain Network Design of a Sustainable Blood Banking System
Anna Nagurney and Amir H. Masoumi, in Sustainable Supply Chains: Models, Methods and Public Policy Implications, T. Boone, V. Jayaraman, and R. Ganeshan, Editors, Springer, London, England, 2011, in press.

Terrific Media Coverage of the Collective Behavior Symposium at AAAS

My brain is still percolating from all the interesting talks that I attended and people that I met at the AAAS Annual Meeting that took place recently in Washington DC.

I also very much appreciate the excellent coverage of the science at this terrific meeting by the media since it is very important to get the news about exciting and important research out!

The Mathematics and Collective Behavior Symposium at the AAAS Meeting was truly enjoyable to be part of. As for media coverage, an article in Science News, entitled, "Model Copes with Chaos to Deliver Disaster Relief, " discusses our research on the design of supply chains for critical needs products from vaccines and medicines to humanitarian relief supplies as well as our research on the management of perishable, life-saving products as in the case of blood supply chains. It also mentions the work of Iain Couzin, who was a fellow panelist of mine at this symposium. Iain and I first met when we were panelists on the Traffic: From Insects to Interstates panel at the World Science Festival in NYC in June 2009 and we had a fabulous time at that event, as well.

The Economist, in its latest issue, also has coverage of Collective Behaviour (British spelling) in a report on Couzin's research in the article: Follow my leader: A group’s “intelligence” depends in part on its members’ ignorance. The article has a gorgeous photo of fish swimming, since that is one type of animal that his research focuses on, but his movies of animals moving and migrating are truly something to behold.